


Jealousy

by Aurae



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angry Sex, Exchange Assignment, Fandom 5K 2019, First Meetings, Jealousy, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, New Republic Politics, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-02-29 14:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/pseuds/Aurae
Summary: When urban riots break out on a planet Ben Solo’s mother Leia Organa is visiting in her official capacity as a Senator of the New Republic, Ben decides to rush in and rescue her from (what he perceives to be) imminent danger.He expects to be lauded as a hero. He definitelydoesn’texpect to face competition for his mother’s attentions from her newest protégé: Poe Dameron.





	Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zilentdreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilentdreamer/gifts).



“I’m going. Don’t try to stop me.”

The temple’s interconnected series of courtyard gardens were at their best in the peaceful, honeyed afternoon light. The air was filled with the buzzing of mating insects and the scents of blooming flowers. Birds flitted in and out of the bushes. Rude life flourished everywhere one might choose to turn.

Ben chose to pay none of it the slightest heed. “Are you even listening?!” he snapped.

Luke’s eyes opened, and he looked up at Ben from where he was seated in meditation. He made no attempt to rise. “I sense no disturbance in the Force. She does not seem to be in any imminent danger. Have you been given to know otherwise? Listen to your feelings. Is this truly the course of action your instincts are telling you to take?” he asked mildly.

Ben crossed his arms over his chest and made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Instincts, shminstincts. This was about pure and simple _logic_. “She isn’t in any danger _yet_. That could change in an instant, and then it’ll be too late. I should be there to protect her. Not, you know, sitting on my ass under a tree with my eyes closed twenty systems away.”

“You already know what I would say to you,” Luke pointed out. He ignored Ben’s jab.

“Yeah, yeah, and _you_ already know how I’d reply: Why bother doing anything—anything at all—if there’s a risk we might make things worse? There’s also a chance I might be able to make things better! I’m going.”

Ben favored Luke with a sardonic bow and took his leave, his undyed, roughspun apprentice robes fluttering behind him. He figured he could make it to the hangar in under five minutes if he ran. Pre-flight checks would take an additional half-hour, even if he cut a few corners. So, in short, he needed to hurry. Further philosophical maundering would just be a waste of precious time.

“Very well. May the Force be with you,” Luke called out to Ben’s fast-receding backside. “The X-wing is fully fueled and ready to go,” he added.

Ben grunted wordlessly to himself, the sound half-grateful, half-begrudging acknowledgment which, thankfully, Luke was too far away to hear. He should’ve known. Sometimes he really hated how damn _good_ his uncle and Jedi Master was at anticipating his every move.

***

R2-D2 beeped a long string of binary nonsense at Ben. He’d never had the patience to learn the language fluently, so at best he only ever got the barest gist of what the astromech droid was attempting to convey. In this instance, though, the barest gist was sufficient.

“Fuck off. I’m not taking you, and I don’t care who you think you are or how many custom mods you think you’ve got! You’re old and obsolete, and you belong in a scrapyard, not a starfighter!”

R2 continued beeping binary nonsense at Ben, but now the socket loading sequence was initiating, and the astromech was being lifted up into the X-wing’s hull.

“Dammit, I said _no_!” Furious, Ben threw out a hand and Force-pushed the droid back down out of the X-wing again. He’d pushed harder than was strictly necessary, so R2 went careening through the hangar, flipping end over end for fifteen meters or so before somehow managing to land upright again, after which he began rocking from side to side and shrieking a binary string of what was probably the droid’s idea of dire, obscene insults.

Ben didn’t care. Droids weren’t, as a rule, worth the effort caring took. “Why don’t you hang out with my uncle instead?” he snapped as he climbed into the cockpit, strapped himself in, and initiated the launch sequence. That was all he needed for now to get going. He figured he’d be able to calculate the hyperspace jumps to Aitzch once he got past atmosphere. “You should go look for him in the gardens under the uneti tree. I’m sure _he’d_ appreciate your company!”

The roar of the repulsorlift engines as the X-wing shot skyward drowned out any irate response R2 might have offered.

Freedom at last, Ben thought.

***

The entire trip took less than two hours. Amazing, Ben thought, how sometimes Luke’s training temple could feel like the middle of nowhere when, in reality, it was surrounded on all sides by the wonders of the civilized galaxy.

The little planetoid which hung in the inky vacuum of space, perfect and pristine, like amethyst in a filigreed aurodium setting, was one of those wonders, without a doubt. Ben had read about its warm purple seas and golden fields and forests as a boy in Hanna City. He’d learned of its long, proud history, pre-dating even the formation of the Old Republic, and the fiercely independent streak of its people. He’d even briefly fancied attending its ancient university and becoming one of its scholars, cloistered and revered for wisdom—well, that was before he’d realized that he could do much, much better with his inborn talents.

Nowadays, although Aitzch was a notional member state of the New Republic, with a cosmopolitan, multi-species core centered around the university grounds and consisting mainly of scholars and students that was staunchly Republican, most of the rest of this prosperous world was, at best, ambivalent about Chancellor Mon Mothma’s ambitious program of unionist policies. Some, in fact, were quite openly against said policies, and the reason for their disgruntlement was simple: the sudden influx of newcomers after the fall of the Empire. Most of Aitzch’s landowning interests had long regarded the planetoid as their own personal idyllic retreat from the great unwashed masses. Rapid demographic change facilitated by unrestricted freedom of movement throughout the New Republic had caused this old guard elite to start to call, very loudly in some cases, for outright secession and the re-erection of old Imperial port of entry checkpoints.

For reasons Ben didn’t fully understand, sympathizers on both sides of the political divide had turned Aitzch into the latest galactic _cause célèbre_. These peripatetic activists had descended upon the world in tens of thousands to participate in organized protests and counter-protests. On one side, there were the protesters who supported Aitzch’s right to secession, who decried the speedy pace of change in the galaxy and its overhasty erasures of tradition and human-centric culture. On the other side were counter-protesting Republicans.

Republicans like Ben’s mother. Ben’s mother, the Senator Leia Organa, that is, who had been invited by the counter-protesters to give a speech at their demonstration, who had accepted their invitation out of irrational loyalty to her old friend Mon, who had blithely ignored reasonable warnings from central counterintelligence _and_ sector law enforcement about the dangers of sudden spasms of political violence on Aitzch…

…and whose last known location when the proverbial bantha poodoo had hit the fan was, inevitably, directly in front of said fan. Because of course that was where Ben’s mother somehow always managed to be: right dead smack in the middle of the HoloNet’s “If It Bleeds It Leads,” top-trending story.

Her current whereabouts were unknown. Ben didn’t think she was personally bleeding yet or anything—he would have sensed it if she were. So that meant he still had time. He reckoned that he ought to be onworld to ensure personally that his mother’s blood stayed safely inside her body where it belonged.

“I’m terribly sorry, young sir, but an interdiction perimeter is being enforced around Aitzchentown—nobody’s being allowed in or out of the docks at present—” the harried-looking spaceport official began.

“I am needed in the center of town,” Ben said without breaking his stride toward the nearest exit, “and you will let me pass without delay.”

“You are needed…I will…let you pass…without delay…” the spaceport official repeated dazedly.

“Oh, and you will give the X-wing a complimentary body wax and polish while I am gone,” Ben added on a whim. A brilliant move, indeed—he congratulated himself. Luke would be so pleased to see his beloved starfighter looking so sparkly and clean when Ben returned it to him! So maybe Ben did have a bad reputation for not taking care of other people’s things, but that reputation just wasn’t merited!

“Yes, young sir. Very good, young sir. Enjoy your visit to Aitzch, young sir,” the spaceport official said.

Ben didn’t bother to thank him. He wouldn’t remember Ben anyway.

Stepping out of the spaceport and onto the streets of Aitzchentown was like plunging into a maelstrom. Chaos had descended. Protesters on both sides were rioting out of control. Ben could hear the sharp retorts of exchanged blaster fire and occasional shouts of anger and screams of pain. Entire blocks of buildings were set ablaze, and an acrid stench of smoke hung in the air. He also noted abundant evidence of opportunistic looting. Surreptitious beings were moving in and out of the rubble, carrying armloads of ill-gotten goods, the glittering shards of transparisteel from broken storefront windows crunching underfoot. Additional—and worse—violent crimes were sure to follow in short order.

So much for the prosperous university town and tourist destination, eh? Talk about a shithole! But Ben wasn’t here to sightsee, and his height afforded him a head and shoulders view above the rabble. He moved through the rioting and the destruction like water through the cracks in crumbling flowstone pavement, using the Force to intuit the best path and, when necessary, to divert the attention of any individuals who might wish to interfere with him.

He allowed his instincts to guide him, and they guided him unerringly through winding, narrow streets and expansive, open piazzas to the foot of a squat, single-storey municipal building which had, at least thus far, been fortunate to escape the indiscriminate predations of the chaos in the streets. It appeared to be shuttered and locked, darkened and empty, like today was a holiday and government officials were all elsewhere, but Ben knew looks could be deceiving. His mother was inside. Yes, he could _feel_ it.

His instincts carried him around the back of the building to a small, unobtrusive service door set two meters or so below street level. The magnetic lock was simplicity itself to unlatch, and the thick, durasteel-reinforced door was counterweighted to shut softly behind him after he’d slipped through.

The door opened onto what appeared to be a disused storage area, dusty and cluttered with obsolete databank tech. The databanks obstructed direct line of sight in all directions and made the already dark basement space even darker. By the time Ben had drawn his lightsaber, filling the space with its cool, blue plasma light, the blaster was already cocked and pointed at his head.

“No sudden moves there, buddy. You got that?”

***

Luke would say that Ben had inherited his nerf-herder obstinacy from his mother. Ben would beg to differ; he might be stubborn, granted, but he prided himself on not being _stupid_.

“This is stupid. We’re just wasting time,” Ben grumbled.

His mother, who had been neither especially surprised nor especially pleased by his unannounced arrival, ignored him now and kept her attention focused instead on the holoproj image of Aitzch’s deputy governor. “What is the current situation in Aitzchentown?” she asked.

“Not good, I’m afraid,” the deputy governor replied. “Senator Moraini is undergoing bacta treatment but remains in critical condition, and the Secessionists are currently occupying all of the major access roads and maglev lines into center city. Our Chief Justicar of Laws is still being held hostage. They are threatening to execute him if we persist in our refusal to negotiate. Although I am convinced that this is a bluff, nevertheless, Senator Organa, I’m afraid that it would not be safe for you to move about. I therefore ask that you remain where you are. A team will be sent to extract you just as soon as we have regained access into center city.”

“Understood. We will shelter in place here and wait for your people to extract us,” Ben’s mother said.

Ben suppressed a sneer of disgust. The deputy governor was a female Duros—an avuncular, outgoing species, to be sure, but also constitutionally frail and ill-suited to adversity or difficult decision-making. No wonder she couldn’t muster the leadership necessary to restore order and sanity to her planet! Why did his mother think she would be of any assistance whatsoever?!

“Many thanks for your patience, Senator. I shall be in touch again.”

“This is stupid,” Ben reiterated after the wan glow of the holoproj deputy governor had faded. “I saw no sign on my way here that the situation was improving. You heard what that Duros woman said—you’re a named target. And c’mon, it doesn’t take a Force-sensitive to figure out where you might be hiding! This a tax collection office, not a top-secret, fortified location. Do you _want_ to have an attempt made on your life? Do you _want_ to become one more piece of collateral damage? We need to get you out of here asap.”

“I am here as a representative of the ideals of Republicanism, Ben. I’m not going to slink shamefully offworld with my tail between my legs. I know you know better than that. This is not how we operate; we must not give in to intimidation.”

“But—”

“I said no.” His mother’s voice was firm, and her face was stone. She was used to being in harm’s way; assassination threats did not move her.

“But—!”

“ _Ben_.”

Ben growled in frustration, threw up his hands, and stormed off. Any more of this Princess Leia Organa brand of lunacy, and he was going to try to knock some sense into his mother, which would be terribly ill-advised.

“Guess she doesn’t listen to her own kid either, huh?” a jocular but distinctly condescending voice remarked.

It was that guy who’d pulled a blaster on him earlier. Ben whirled about, the temptation to do something violent he’d probably regret later practically overwhelming. “I want to hurt something right now, and your face is looking mighty convenient. So fuck off before I try it.”

“Ha ha, wow. You’re one feisty little kid, aren’t you? Your reputation precedes you, Jedi apprentice Ben Solo.” That obnoxiously condescending voice belonged to a male human in a New Republic Navy ensign’s uniform. The rank implied that he was only a few years older than Ben at most, but in spite of the insulting addition of “little” to “kid,” he was much shorter and smaller than Ben. Well, physically at least. The ego was definitely super-sized. And Ben loathed the unmistakable implication that his mother had been telling unflattering stories to this asshole about her son.

“It so happens, though, that I am in total agreement with you. We oughta be jetting, not skulking and hiding. I told Leia, but she won’t hear it from me either…and she put me in charge of her personal security, if you can believe it. Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Poe, Poe Dameron. Nice to make your acquaintance, Ben ol’ buddy,” the obnoxious male human asshole named Poe continued.

“Personal security?!” Ben echoed. He didn’t know whether to be appalled or jealous of Poe’s status. Wasn’t this the kind of job that ought to be entrusted to Senator Organa’s talented, Force-sensitive son? Wasn’t that the reason he was training to be a damn Jedi Knight in the first place? So why wasn’t _he_ the one with the job of protecting his own mother from potential harm?! What the hell made Poe Dameron so fucking special?!?!

“Yep. Special assignment. My first after graduating from academy. Cool, huh?” Poe was leaning casually against a databank, shoulders back, chest and hips thrust forward. _I’m sexy and I know it_ , his louche body language seemed to say.

 _That_ —and his too-casual use of Ben’s mother’s name, not to mention his familiar, apparently easygoing relationship with her—made Ben hate Poe immediately.

***

Although darkness had fallen on Aitzchentown, the dangers in the streets had not yet abated. If anything, they’d grown self-evidently worse. The riots were clearly audible now, even from their below-ground hideout. It thus looked like Ben, his mother, and Poe were going to be spending the night in this awful municipal building basement.

Ben found an out of the way corner where he could lay down his outer cloak as a makeshift blanket. His tunic he wadded up into a pillow. Luke’s training had prepared him well for this manner of hardship, at least.

The training had prepared him decidedly less well for falling asleep when he was on edge, unfortunately. He’d tried to confront his mother again about her decision to shelter in place, but of course she’d been impossible to budge. He’d also tried to confront her about the asshole Poe Dameron, and her answers had been equally unsatisfying. _His parents are great people,_ she’d said. _He’s a great pilot,_ she’d said, _and he could be a great leader as well with proper focused cultivation._

 _And you’re the one to cultivate it?_ Ben had asked. _Why does it have to be_ you _, Mom? Why does_ he _get to spend more quality time with you than_ I _do?!_

His mother hadn’t taken kindly to that question. _Since we aren’t going anywhere, and you clearly have nothing better to do,_ she’d told him curtly, _please contemplate the possibility that you aren’t the only being deserving of my time and personal attention_. She had more responsibilities than she could number off the top of her head, she’d reminded him, and Poe Dameron was but one. Meanwhile, Ben was being trained in his gifts by his mother’s one and only beloved twin brother—if her one and only son failed to appreciate his own great good fortune, he ought to reconsider his point of view.

The chastisement reverberated in Ben’s head endlessly as he lay wrapped in his cloak. He couldn’t get his mother’s words—or Poe—out of his mind. Gods, her rejection made him feel so angry! And the anger was so heavy in his chest, so suffocating he could barely _breathe_. Was this how it was always going to be? No matter how blessed his lineage, or how arduously he worked to please, was he always going to come in second place for _everything_ he wanted? Even when it shouldn’t be something he should have to compete for at all? Like a mother’s love for her one and only child?!

Ben slipped a hand between his legs. He had an erection; anger always made him hard as durasteel. He gripped himself firmly and began to stroke, the physical sensation distant as his mind continued to churn and churn and churn over a lifetime of failures, near-misses, and other assorted resentments. He’d been teased and bullied by his age mates, and then, once they’d learned of his powers, they’d feared and avoided him. Luke was supposed to help solve that problem; instead, Luke always seemed to be cross with Ben. Even the damned astromech droid R2-D2 disliked him. Ben stroked himself faster, more aggressively, rocking his hips up into his fist like he could tear a hole into the very fabric of the galaxy itself with his cock. That asshole Poe Dameron was just the tippy top of the very tall mountain made up of Ben’s grievances. Mmm, the familiar tension was beginning to coil low in his belly, and his scrotum was tightening—aaahhh, how he wished he could rip that self-satisfied smirk off of Poe’s handsome face—

“Oh! Hey, buddy…didn’t see you! Sorry for tripping over you like that! Wow, nice boner you’re sporting there! Think you might like some help with that?”

Ben roared with fury and yanked Poe clear off his feet with a Force-grab of one ankle. Poe hit the floor with a grunt and a huff, and before he could regain his equilibrium or his breath, Ben was on top of him. Poe might be older, but Ben was bigger and heavier, and anyway, Poe didn’t seem to be trying to resist.

Quite the contrary, in fact. He was hard between the legs too, as hard as Ben, and his fingers were gripping Ben’s shoulders painfully, and he was arching into Ben to increase the contact between their two bodies. Ben shuddered at the grating sensation of Poe’s clothed erection rubbing against his own naked, already much abused one, and he tore open the front of Poe’s pants.

Well, well, well. Poe’s cock was significantly smaller than Ben’s, as it turned out. That discovery was immensely gratifying.

“Oh, uhh, do you know what to do with that, buddy? Hey, do you? ’Cause, uhh, you know…”

Ben roared again and slammed his hips into Poe’s with a savage twist. Then he did it again. And again. And again and again and again. Dry humping didn’t feel especially good or anything, but Ben was far too mad to care, and Poe didn’t seem to mind either as he was gyrating in counterpoint beneath Ben, and their cocks were sliding against each other and leaking precome, which made the humping less dry and the sensations sweeter, more intense, which made Ben grind himself all the more furiously into Poe—

“Umm…sooooo…no need to be in such a hurry, right? Maybe we ought to switch to something a bit less, uhh, _frantic_ …?”

“Shaddap!” Ben snapped.

“Hey! Relax, buddy, it was just a suggestion—”

Poe talked waaaay too much. So Ben leaned forward and kissed him, wet and awkward and aggressive, snapping at his plush lower lip with teeth hard enough to draw blood. Poe moaned into Ben’s mouth, allowing him to control the kiss, and raked his back with short, blunt fingernails, but at least he wasn’t talking anymore!

The inevitable conclusion arrived quickly after that, and Ben began to ejaculate amid a breathless hiss of half-stifled expletives, the orgasm less about ecstasy than sheer relief and release of tension and moof-headed determination to mark Poe with the long, white stripes of his semen. Poe came too a half-second later, his smaller cock spitting out a more modest but undeniable tribute down onto the dark thatch of his pubic hair, and Ben continued humping Poe straight through the aftershocks, even though the oversensitivity made it unpleasant to continue, solely to spread around the mess they’d made of each other all the more.

Thing was, he didn’t want Poe to be able to deny that this had happened later, and to be perfectly honest, he also wanted his mother to know about what they’d done. He wanted her to know he’d made her precious future leader his little bitch. Maybe _that_ would knock Poe down a notch or two or twenty in her personal estimation. Even if it didn’t, though, it didn’t matter. Ben loved being able to dominate Poe, he realized, and he loved how easily Poe, despite being the elder, had given in and let Ben do it.

Or maybe it’d been too easy. Maybe Poe had been too easy. Was he a slut who’d fuck anybody given half the opportunity? Ben snarled and abruptly shoved Poe away, using a touch of the Force to strengthen the push, not bothering to contain his innate penchant for violence. “Why don’t you fuck off back to my mother, Dameron—I’m trying to get some sleep here, or didn’t you notice?”

Amazingly, Poe didn’t say another word. After taking a moment to tuck himself as best he could into his soiled pants, he just nodded and left Ben alone with his confused, unsettled thoughts.

***

By the time Ben woke the next morning, groggy, smelly, and gratifyingly sticky, Poe was already back to guarding the inside of the alleyway entrance to the basement with his blaster at the ready. Ben, meanwhile, for lack of anything better to do, decided to stick near his mother. There was a limit to how much longer they could afford to stay here, given that there was no food and only limited water, and Ben wanted to be there when the proud Senator and Princess Leia Organa finally caved and agreed with Ben that they ought to take their chances on the streets.

In short, he wanted to gloat. Was that really too much to ask, given the circumstances?

Ben had not the slightest doubt whatsoever that his mother knew _exactly_ what he’d been getting up to with Poe last night, and he imagined he knew _exactly_ what she was thinking: that her son was still much, _much_ too young for casual sexual activity, never mind a serious romantic relationship, and as an apprentice Jedi he wasn’t supposed to be indulging in either of these things anyway. However, his mother was much, _much_ too proper and conscious of unwritten social mores to chastise Ben for his poor behavior where someone outside of the family might catch wind of it. Hell, she hadn’t even told _Luke_ about some of Ben’s more minor peccadillos!

So. Yeah. It was lots of fun making his mother steaming mad in a situation that she wouldn’t be able to vent her anger, and it meant that there was an upside to all this waiting—the longer they waited, the longer his mother would be made to stew in silence. Given Ben’s entirely justifiable anger with her at the moment, this seemed no less than eminently fair.

In the end, though, they ended up not having to wait very long. An emergency extraction team arrived within the hour. The lead member nearly got the business end of Poe’s blaster in the face when they entered the basement unannounced.

“Senator Organa?” the being, species and gender indeterminate beneath the bulky riot gear, asked.

“Perfect timing,” Ben’s mother replied with a wry smile and characteristic, consummate grace.

Ben couldn’t quite agree, but he didn’t voice his dissent aloud. He’d only just been getting used to the idea that he could sit around here and enjoy his mother’s growing displeasure with him.

They exited the basement with members of the extraction team positioned both ahead and behind them. Poe took it upon himself to take the lead ahead of Ben’s mother and Ben himself, who’d decided to continue sticking close to his mother and let Poe be the first to take the brunt of any unpleasantness which might be awaiting them unbeknownst at street level.

Which was totally prescient on Ben’s part because that was precisely how it happened. Within moments of emerging into the wan light of morning, marred by the smoke of a dozen fires still raging out of control throughout Aitzchentown and the sounds of violent skirmishes between protesters and counter-protesters, protesters and law enforcement, someone was shooting at them.

Ben, with his Force-enhanced reflexes, covered his mother with his own body while simultaneously lifting and hurling the shooter thirty meters into the side of a distant building and pinning the being there, threat neutralized.

Poe, meanwhile, who’d reacted more slowly—but not _that_ much more slowly—had, brave fool that he was, charged the shooter and taken that first shot fired directly in the chest.

***

“Get some rest, and that’s an order. Are you listening to me, Poe?”

“Yes, Leia,” Poe favored Ben’s mother with his best rakish grin. The effect might have been more effective if he weren’t lying horizontal and immobilized in a bacta suit.

It’d been touch and go for awhile, but fortunately…or unfortunately (Ben wasn’t quite sure which way his feelings went as of yet)…the top of the line trauma specialists of Aitzchentown hospital had managed to save Poe’s life.

The shooter hadn’t been so lucky. She—she’d been a female human, as it turned out, and a protester on the side of the Republicans, ironically, who in the midst of the chaos had somehow failed to recognize Ben’s mother as one of her idols—had died during transport to the hospital. Ben figured the shooter was proof-positive that the Republicans weren’t always representatives of righteousness and justice in the galaxy; they numbered violent terrorists in their ranks, after all.

(Ben’s mother had been unmoved. _One bad piece of shuura fruit doesn’t mean the entire harvest is rotten_ , she’d said. _Representative democracy may not be perfect, but it’s the best we have._

Ben had disagreed vehemently. These were old arguments between him and his mother, however, and both knew the other would not budge, and then Poe had woken up, and that had ended the latest iteration of The Argument.)

“And now, if the two of you will excuse me,” his mother continued, “I am about to be late for a debriefing with the deputy governor. Ben, come and find me after you’re finished here,” she added, voice light—but with a sharp, pointed glare at Ben which meant she still had some much delayed, strong words for him once they were together in private.

Ben wasn’t concerned. He’d weathered far worse from both of his parents over the years. And besides, what could she do? Disown him? Pretend he wasn’t her son anymore? Ha! Not a snowball’s chance on Mustafar.

“Well, buddy, I’m surprised you stuck around. I guess I figured you didn’t especially like me,” Poe remarked once he was sure they were alone.

Ben shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t know what gave you that idea.”

“Oh, I dunno? Maybe the way you shoved me like you shoved that shooter? You’ve got quite a temper—”

“Note that you’re alive and she’s not,” Ben interrupted. “There’s a big difference.”

“Ah. Hmm. I see. Okay, buddy, point taken.”

“My name isn’t ‘buddy,’ you know. It’s Ben.” Ben frowned. He was getting mighty tired of Poe’s jocular condescension.

“All right, all right! Ben. I got it.”

They stared at each other. The silence lengthened. Poe shifted as best he could in the bacta suit, trying but evidently failing to find a more comfortable position. Ben smirked and snorted—not even Poe could manage looking sexy while immersed in bacta!

“Look me up after you get out of that thing,” Ben said, striking his best bravura imitation of Poe’s shoulders back, hips out pose. “I don’t get much time off from my training, but I’d be happy to make time for you. We could have some serious… _fun_.”

Poe grinned. It was the same grin he’d given Ben’s mother, Ben noticed. Ben told himself it didn’t matter, that he wasn’t jealous anymore, and he nearly managed to believe it. “You know, budd—I mean _Ben_ —I might just do that.”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to the exchange on May 22, 2019.


End file.
